August 17th Meeting Summary
The Council met on August 17th. I was not in attendance, but watched the meeting in its entirety. Here are some highlights of what was discussed.
The main item on the agenda was a pilot agreement for 383 Bloomfield Avenue, otherwise known as the former Hillcrest Farms property. The Townships legal attorney on this matter spoke about some of the details of this plan. This is a 30 year tax abatement for the development of 4,000 square feet of new ground floor retail/commercial space, 33 residential units (mostly 2 bedrooms), 2 supportive housing units for adults with special needs, and 1 three bedroom moderate income "affordable" units. As our legal council discussed, the negotiated financial agreement comes in, in his opinion, at the low end of a fair financial agreement for the developer. On behalf of the Township, he spent a few months negotiating a better deal on behalf of the township, moving up some of the financial escalators in the timeline so the Township could receive payments sooner. This project is in our affordable housing compliance plan, which is required by the State of New Jersey.
This pilot agreement generated a lot of public comments, statements from my peers, and since the meeting, news articles. I will reference that the Township put out an explainer on PILOT agreements on our website here: https://www.veronanj.org/pilotagreements. I was not involved in any way with the creation of this webpage or the messaging.
The pilot agreement will be voted on at the public meeting on Monday, September 14th. You can review the agenda here: https://www.veronanj.org/councilmeetings.
The other big agenda item that was discussed at the meeting was a tax policy to go with the Council's designation of the entirety of Bloomfield Avenue an Area in Need of Rehabilitation. This tax policy would provide a tax abatement for up to five years for the improvement of the property. The Council members had a substantial conversation about whether or not residential units contained in mixed used buildings should be included in the policy, ending with applying the tax policy to improvements of existing residential units, but not applying to the creation of any new units. They discussed their agreement that this policy should apply to commercial property. They also talked about writing into the policy wording to make sure that the Township is not collecting less taxes then they would normally had collected.
This ordinance was put on the agenda for introduction for the meeting on Monday, September 14th. You can read the revised ordinance on the agenda here: https://www.veronanj.org/councilmeetings.
Other items voted on at this meeting included:
Authorizing redevelopment agreements for both 176-200 Bloomfield Avenue and 420 Bloomfield Avenue (otherwise known as Richfield Regency).
Contracts to upgrade the AV system and the HVAC at the Community Center
A contract to purchase an ambulance
Acceptance of a Clean Communities grant and a grant for body armor.
As always, feedback to the Council on any matter should be sent to all five members of the Council using the convenient form here: https://www.veronanj.org/townshipcouncil.
